A corporate action can be defined as any event that is initiated by a commercial entity that impacts one or more shareholders of the entity. With regard to at least some corporate actions, shareholders of the entity may be required to provide a response to the corporate action. With regard to other types of corporate actions, a response to the corporate action may be voluntary on the part of the shareholder. Examples of common corporate actions include, for example and without limitation, the following events: stock splits, mergers of the business entity with another business entity, acquisition by the business entity of another business, establishing a portion of the business entity as a stand-alone business entity (i.e., a “spin-off”), tender offers, exchanges, conversions, puts, full redemptions, partial redemptions, rights, warrants, reverse stock splits, consents, partial pre-refunding, full pre-refunding, liquidations, name changes, stock dividends, and the like.
It can be appreciated that a financial institution such as a financial services firm, for example, may need to process and monitor corporate actions in connection with the duties it performs for its clients who are shareholders of one or more entities that issue corporate actions. Many conventional systems and methods, however, involve manually generated and distributed reports, announcements, and other communications related to corporate actions. Furthermore, critical deadlines, due dates, and deliverables associated with corporate actions are often manually calendar docketed by personnel of the financial institution who are responsible for monitoring, distributing, and tracking the corporate actions. Thus, many conventional systems and methods do not sufficiently translate workflow management requirements into features that can effectively monitor, process, and control activities associated with corporate action information.
What are needed, therefore, are systems and methods that allow corporate action information to be monitored, processed, and distributed to responsible parties for notification and decision-making purposes. In addition, systems and methods are needed that can provide enhanced workflow management for a financial institution to manage responses, deadlines and other potentially critical activities associated with corporate actions. Such improved systems and methods are needed to maximize the potential for automation of corporate action processes that performing monitoring, communication, and control functions in connection with corporate action information that impacts the financial institution and its clients.